Propaganda and Satire

These seem (to me) to be the tools (mostly) of the in-power and the others, respectively. Propaganda works great to convince people of something that isn't true without evidence. But the real key to its success now is the effort put into rapid response instead of fact-checking (as this most recent and blown-up story shows http://www.fair.org/activism/cbs-memos-knox.html). But the really neat trick is the way the rapid response is used. You would think if you reported on something really early people would be especially skeptical of the news, but this is not the case. The opposite seems to be true. Most people seem to think are are getting in on a new secret even though it may be false. But the "coup de grace" is how the unverified piece of information then get readily repeated and before the facts are made public a new rapid piece of information is fabricated. Then all attention focuses on the "breaking" story and the last piece of info is pushed aside. Then when its validity is know it doesn't matter since most people will take the piece of information they have had longer as true.

The only effective counter to propaganda seems to be satire. When the facts are presented in such a way that the target end up looking or sounding absolutely silly, and the foolishness of the propaganda is fully revealed with a laugh, that's when minds change. I wonder how much of the "Reagan" programming could be undone by watching "Eddie Murphy Raw"? I guess that's why The Daily Show is doing so well. With the Republicans pumping out an abundance of rapid-nonsense, sequencing is enough to get a great chuckle.